


A Letter, with Love

by endemictoearth



Category: My Mad Fat Diary
Genre: F/M, Love Letters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-24
Updated: 2014-02-24
Packaged: 2018-04-08 12:11:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4304517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/endemictoearth/pseuds/endemictoearth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This takes place post 2.02. Rae writes Finn a love letter after she's broken up with him and on her way to send it, something happens.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Letter, with Love

Who would even write a love letter? That was so stupid.

 

And yet, Rae found herself so full of feeling and longing and regret and remorse, she had to get it out of her somehow. 

> Dear Finn,
> 
> Someone once called you “fit and lovely”—that doesn’t even begin to cover what you are. You are delicious, too delicious for me, but you’re so much more than that. You’re sweet where I’m bitter, you’re kind where I’m callous, you’re brave where I’m a coward. They say opposites attract, but you’re light and I’m so dark and dense I’m like a black hole, I would consume you and steal your light and I never want to do that.
> 
> Someone also wanted to make you theirs. Thing is, I didn’t realize I’d made you mine until it was too late. I know the universe isn’t kind enough to give me a second chance with you. I’ve wasted all my second chances cheating death, and as a penalty, I get to exist, but it seems that existence will have to be alone. In a way, it’s what I deserve, a lifetime sentence in the same cells as my worst enemy. 
> 
> I wrote a letter to my friend Tix, but it was too late. I delivered it to her grave. This letter will be too late, too, but because I know you’ll have moved on. That is the right thing to do. I just wanted you to know that now  _I_ know what I lost. How stupid I’ve been.
> 
> I wrote another letter to my mum, one that I never want her to see. But I want you to see this one. Because you deserve to know that it wasn’t anything you did or didn’t do. You couldn’t make me better, because I have to do that for myself. 
> 
> Being rational is easy in a letter. I can plan out what to say, rewrite passages, find the best words, the right words. But I can’t be rational in the moment, everyday. I’ve spent so much of my life trying to be invisible, but you are so beautiful, people can’t help but stare at you. I wasn’t even jealous—I understand why they do. But being next to you, being watched, being judged and found wanting every single day, I started to come apart at the seams. Because even if what I think they’re thinking isn’t as bad as what they actually think—
> 
> I know I shouldn’t care. In my head, I tell myself that it doesn’t matter, and that they can fuck off. When it’s happening, though, when those eyes are on me, I just remember being pushed into lockers and the names called after me in the street. When you punched that twat outside the chippy? That wasn’t the first time, it wasn’t the hundredth time. I can’t remember a time I didn’t draw the wrong kind of attention. I’m weak. I couldn’t take the pressure, and you deserve someone strong, someone whole.
> 
> Please don’t hate me. I know we can’t be friends. I fooled myself for a minute on the swings. It’s just, I watched Pride and Prejudice when I was in hospital and this line stuck with me: “I can’t bear to think of him alive in the world and thinking ill of me.” That’s what would really kill me. So, if we ever run into one another in the pub, or at school, just give me a sign that I’m forgiven. A smile, a nod, something. I’ll know, and I’ll never bother you again.
> 
> Rae

She’d had to stop writing three times to wipe away the tears. When she was finished, she put the letter in an envelope, addressed it, and sealed it (without a kiss-she was done with kissing). A lone tear splashed on the back of the envelope, and Rae swore under her breath. 

She walked to her door and opened it, then stood wavering in the threshold for a minute. Then she called out, “Mum? Have we got any stamps?”

“Next to the pig where I put your mail, love! How many d’ya need?” came the shrill reply from downstairs.

Rae slumped down the carpeted steps, and when she got the bottom, she poked her head around the door frame and simply said, “Just one.”

“Well, alright, then,” Linda conceded. 

Rae made her way over to the stamps, tore one off the sheet, and licked the back of the queen’s head, quickly affixing it to the corner of the letter. It was crooked, but she couldn’t prise it back up. She took a deep breath and when she was at the front door, she shouted, “I’m goin’ to the postbox to mail this!”

No reply from her mother, so she rolled her eyes and took another deep breath. She just had to do it. Her hand reached out for the door knob, and when she twisted it and pulled the door open, there was Finn. On her porch, one hand scratching the opposite elbow nervously. He jumped back as she gasped, “Finn! What are you doin’ here?”

“C-came to—” he stuttered. “I, that is, I dunno, really. It just—I know you don’t wanna see me, but—oh, forget it.” He started to turn to walk away when his eye caught the envelope in her hand. “Is—is that for me?” he asked.

“N-no,” Rae mumbled.

Finn’s voice dropped to a whisper. “I saw my name on it, Rae.”

“It’s nothin’! I jus’ … felt bad. Feel bad. It won’t change anythin’. I just, I wasn’t gonna send it. I wrote it, but …”

“You wrote it, addressed it and stamped it, Rae.” Finn edged closer, his hand inching toward the letter, now clenched in her fist. 

“Yeah, but—” Rae couldn’t think of anything. Her backpack of bullshit was empty. She couldn’t think of a lie to feed him. She’d been lying to everyone for so long, herself most of all, and the well of prevarication was all dried up.

“Then let me read it.”

“I don’t want you to read it in front of me. Take it home.” She held her hands out defensively and Finn took the letter. He paused, not turning to leave. Finally, Rae asked, “What?”

“Turn around,” he said.

“What?” Rae asked again, louder this time.

“I can’t wait until I get home; I can’t wait until I get to the end of the street. I’m readin’ this here; I’m readin’ it now. And if you don’t want to see me read it, turn around.”

For a second, Rae thought about running inside and slamming the door, but she didn’t. She pivoted herself a quarter turn to face away from him. She heard him tear the letter open, the sound of the pages unfolding, and then … excruciating silence. She desperately wanted to peek at his face, gauge his reaction, but she squeezed her eyes shut instead. 

Time slowed down, the blood rushed in her ears and she had shut down all of her senses. It wasn’t until she felt a touch on the outside of her clenched fist that she opened her eyes and gasped for breath. She turned to face Finn, wary, uneasy. 

His face was troubled, eyes cast down, eyebrows furrowed, lower lip bitten, jaw set. She felt herself on the edge of collapse, like someone had pressed the plunger on a detonator across the street and she was waiting for the explosion, the moment when she would cave in on herself. She started to look up and away, to breathe deep, to find something flat, but Finn took hold of the hand he just touched, and she looked back at him, wild-eyed and wondering. 

He smiled. He nodded. She still didn’t understand, so he pointed at the letter. Oh! She’d been forgiven. 

Finn could forgive her. How was that possible? She couldn’t forgive herself. She didn’t realize she was standing there, shaking her head no, until she was inside Finn’s embrace, her chin working against his shoulder. 

“How can you forgive me?” she whispered. 

“If I told you, you wouldn’t believe me.” Finn whispered back. Then he leaned back, still holding her around the waist. “You need to work on that. Believin’ people? Not everyone is as full of shit as you are.” 

Rae pulled away, blinking back tears. “I never believe anything good, that’s for sure.”

“I’m startin’ to get that,” Finn said in a quiet voice. He looked back at the letter in his hand. “We need to talk about this, but not right now.” Rae nodded. Then he scanned the bottom of the page. “I nodded, I smiled,” he checked them off by counting them on his thumb and forefinger. “Now, what’s ‘something’? Hmm.” He scratched the back of his head, in mock consternation, and then darted his head forward to kiss her quick. It was a soft and sweet surprise, and Rae sighed into it. She just said she was done with kissing. That was something she  _had_  believed. When she opened her eyes, there were Finn’s, staring back at her. 

“You don’t have to believe me yet; I’ve got time to bring you round.”


End file.
